Social and economic aspects of nanotechnology: Stuff too cheap to steal

Soft Machines ^ | 11/22/04 | Richard Jones

[LibWhacker]

Proponents of Drexlerian nanotechnology (MNT) often cite the disruption to the economy that they say will happen when MNT makes the cost of manufacturing everyday products negligibly small. But we’re not far off this situation already; only a fraction of the value in the goods we buy in the shops is added by the manufacturing process (as opposed to design, marketing, retailing and so on). Relentless incremental improvements in manufacturing technology, together with the economic pressures of globalisation, are already causing an unprecedented and sustained drop in the price of consumer goods. There’s rather poignant commentary on this process in today’s Times. It seems that burglary rates have recently precipitately dropped in Britain. Much as politicians would like to attribute this to their far-sighted crime policies, the police instead blame the fact that the traditional things that get stolen in break-ins - televisions, video recorders, computers and so on - are now so cheap to buy new, and are so quickly rendered obsolescent, that the markets for the stolen goods have all but collapsed.

[Dozer3]

Sounds great to me. Coast to Coast often has guests on that talk about nanotechnology, and they say when it's perfected they'll be able to assemble the finest machinery built from a molecular level on up in the time it takes you to snap your fingers.